Cultureshock

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Video transcript

I suppose I ‘discovered’ art as a schoolgirl when, living in a North Yorkshire village, and never having been to an art gallery, I began to take art books out of the local library.  I went to Nottingham University which had a policy of encouraging students to take as one course something that they had not studied at school.  From the list of possible topics which was read out to me at my interview, I rather hesitantly chose Fine Art, saying that I didn’t really know a lot about it. It was a jump into the unknown. However, the time spent studying art proved to be the happiest part of my student years. The lectures opened up a whole new world of understanding, and I loved the Saturday mornings when I earned a modest but very welcome pittance sitting at the reception desk of the University Art Gallery.  I realised that a career in the world of art would be my ideal, but that it was not a practical option, as I could not finance the further study which would have been necessary to enter such a competitive arena. 

Over the next decades wherever I travelled I visited art galleries, and I built up my own collection of art books.  When I retired from my teaching career I volunteered to work once a week on the Welcome Desk of the Friends of the Laing Art Gallery. I love the Laing, and have become quite proprietorial about ‘my’ Gallery.  Not only is there the joy of coming in each week, and being able to see so many of the gallery’s own works, and the anticipation of the temporary exhibitions, I love the sense of community provided by the Gallery.   The friendly staff, the regulars who use the café, the mothers and toddlers who gather in the Under 5s Area, groups of schoolchildren and students, frequent foreign visitors who often want to know more about the area as well as the paintings – it’s impossible to be bored as there is always some activity. 

I have gained even more pleasure as a part of the editorial team which produces the Friends News.  Recently I wrote an article about two paintings by little known artists for which the Friends had funded conservation.  Mid the Wild Music of the Glen was by Niels Moeller Lund. I have always enjoyed researching – the feel of detective work- the thrill of the chase! I discovered that the artist who lived from 1863 to1916 was Danish but came to Newcastle aged four.  After time at the Newcastle School of Art, he moved to London for further study, and remained based there, although he returned to spend long periods on Tyneside, where he carried out local landscape and portrait commissions.  He was fascinated by the impressionistic representation of light effects due to differing atmospheric conditions, and this is evident in two of his paintings in the Laing’s collection, Newcastle upon Tyne from Gateshead, and Newcastle upon Tyne from the East.  Shortly afterwards I was contacted at the Friends’ Office by a man who wished to talk to me about the article.   It seemed his family was also of Danish origin, and his grandfather had been the best friend of Moeller Lund, going to school with him.  The family still owned several paintings by him.  He also told me that after Lund’s early death, his widow had let out his studio in London to a young artist who became one of the important artists of 20th Century Britain, Ivon Hitchens, whose work is also represented at the Laing.  I then had the anticipation of waiting for him to gather more information about his family’s links with Moeller Lund, to share with the readers of Friends News. This link to the world behind the pictures in the gallery was a real thrill for me.  The Laing Art Gallery has revolutionised my retirement, and I feel privileged that 40 years on, I have achieved my ambition of working, in however small a way, in the world of art.